Blood & Truth PlayStation VR Review

Blood & Truth is made by the Sony London team responsible for PlayStation VR Worlds The London Heist, and it shows. It takes place in London and is all about gangsters and things like that. The biggest difference is that Blood & Truth is a complete game, as opposed to a frustratingly brief experience that only really existed to show off new VR hardware in the way that The Heist did.

The story has SAS soldier Ryan Marks returning to London after the sudden death of his father, a big player in the criminal underworld. Despite this grim plot outline, Blood & Truth has a playful sense of humour, which often gifts the narrative some of its best moments, and this is even present when another family muscles in on your turf. The interactions between Mark, his brother, sister and mother, give the game lots of personality and even some wonderfully juvenile moments.

Like The London Heist, Blood & Truth is a first person shooter. It’s a game that can be played with either the Dual Shock or a pair of Move controllers, but it’s easily the latter that offers the most fun as well as the most immersion. Pulling your pistols out of your hip holsters, accessing your bigger guns from over your shoulder, as well as reloading your weapons (ammo is stored on your chest) in various ways are all actions that soon feel perfectly natural with a Move controller in each hand. It’s all also very satisfying in a manner that only VR is able to offer, and enemies also have some wonderfully satisfying death animations which further enhances the shooting.

The game doesn’t offer free movement, but it’s not entirely on rails either as it often allows you to move from cover to cover by simply looking at the section you are wanting Marks to move to, and it’s also possible to strafe and to use cover with your own head movements. Locomotion can feel a little odd and unnatural at times, particularly as you can only move to certain areas that the game restricts you to, but it’s something that many will easily get used to. Then there’s the thrilling sections that completely plucks movement control from you, with Marks on the run and your own movements being limited to aiming your guns and firing at anyone in your path as enemy gangsters appear from all directions.

Blood & Truth also has some very Bond-like action moments in its gleeful campaign, which means it’s like a clumsy cross between a gangster and James Bond film, but yet it somehow happens to work. It’s wonderful stuff, and it’s slightly disappointing that there isn’t a few more moments like this.

It’s not all out action though, as Blood & Truth does give you the occasional break from all that immensely satisfying shooting. There’s playable sections that are just there to move the story along (a memorable trek through a museum is one such section) and there’s also brief moments that have you lock picking doors, setting breach charges or C4, breaking wires, climbing, and so on. The Move controllers once again make these actions all the more immersive, although annoyance does come in the form of tracking issues from time to time.

At 5 to 6 hours, Blood & Truth doesn’t outstay its welcome and it does feel like a complete game, but a part of me definitely wished there had been a slightly larger campaign. There’s time trials that have you rushing through shooting galleries, and while they are fun enough, they’re in no way as fun as shooting at the human enemies in the campaign.

In summary, Blood & Truth is an absolute thrill ride of a game while it lasts, and easily one of the best experiences that PlayStation VR has to offer. While the lack of free movement may irk some, the campaign could have benefitted from slightly longer legs, and occasional tracking movements can result in you looking more like Johnny English than James Bond, the game is still hugely satisfying to play. SIE London Studio wanted you to feel like an action star, and I don’t think anyone could argue that they haven’t succeeded in doing just that.